


Age of Heroes... Ending?

by shestepsintotheriver



Series: Not Another Rewrite [4]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age of Ultron but also not, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Canon Jewish Character, Friendship, Guilt, M/M, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers-centric, canon romani character, even if the MCU wont recognize that, on hiatus sorry, the aftermath of the fall of SHIELD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22162150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shestepsintotheriver/pseuds/shestepsintotheriver
Summary: When S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, Steve thought it was going to make a difference. That he was going to be free, that he was going to bring Bucky home.Instead, he and the Avengers have been grounded, snared in a political web that grows ever tighter as the S.H.I.E.L.D. trials progress. The Avengers have been forced into the role of a special ops military squad and are deployed only when necessary and only to fight HYDRA. In between missions, Steve makes desperate attempts to find Bucky.But Bucky isn't ready to be found.Reclaiming his name was easy. All the things that come with it? Less so. But he's trying, finding his way between the clashing identities in his head. On one hand, there's James Barnes, who feels everything too much, too strong. On the other, there's the Soldier, cold and void and restless. And between them? The fragmented pieces of Bucky.Meanwhile, a new conflict is brewing: a vigilante arises, causing more public unrest. The Age of Heroes rose fast, but maybe... the time has come for it to fall.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Not Another Rewrite [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1337347
Comments: 52
Kudos: 55





	1. Interlude: Wanda

**Author's Note:**

> i still own nothing.  
> if your have just stumbled on this fic, i recommend reading the series it is part of from the very beginning. i'm going to start going quite a bit off-script from now on. 
> 
> I wasn't supposed to start this adventure just yet, but I'm already violating my no-writing rule, and I got too excited. however, the update schedule will be very sporadic for now, as i am going through my exams. i can still be reached here or on tumblr: https://purpurred.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> at the end of this chapter, there will be a few notes about the Maximoffs and the Romani terms used herein.

It won’t be long now.

Wanda suspects that the soldiers guarding them might sense that, too. For days, she has been weakening, body caving under whatever strange power awoke inside her when they first came for her and Pietro. When they first parted them, and the torture began.

When they were children, their _daki dej_ had told them stories—stories about a young man forged in fury, in fear and sorrow, in the heart of a labor camp in Germany. With nothing more than the power of his will, he’d bent the metal gates that kept him and his people captured, hadn’t stopped until they knocked him out. Then, they’d killed his mother. His father had already been gone. The young man was alone, his rage his only companion.

That young man was mutant—though that term had not quite come into fashion yet. But more importantly to this story, he was— _is_ —Wanda’s grandfather.

Wanda has never met him. He doesn’t even know about them, hadn’t known about their _daia_ either, his daughter. “He could not stay,” their _daki dej_ had always said. It was a kinder way of saying that he had left them behind. His rage had burned too bright to stay. But Magda Maximoff loved that man for a long time to come, even as his reputation grew darker as he fought to keep his people safe—the mutants, his new family.

The world never likes it much when its subjugated people fight back.

With an ancestor like that, you would think that Wanda and Pietro had grown up extraordinary, or at least somewhat more special than they had. But they’d had an ordinary childhood, hadn’t shown even a trace of their grandfather’s powers. As _Roma_ , they had never been truly welcome anywhere, not in Europe, and not in America, except among their own people. Then their _daia_ had died and their _daki dej_ soon after, and they’d been ripped from their community, put into foster care among goyim and _gadje_. What customs they’d retained, they’d fought to keep close, hiding their secrets away from their wardens who would rather strip them off their heritage entirely. They passed as _gadje,_ so why couldn’t they just act like them, too?

The second they’d been able to, they’d run. No one looks for a couple of unwanted problem cases. There were too many foster children already, the missing ones were just one less burden. Barely grown, they’d parented each other, and while it had been hard, at least they’d been free.

But only for a short while. Then, the soldiers came for them.

Wanda doesn’t dare dream that biding their time will save them this time. They’ve been in the underground bunker for weeks already, starving and kept apart by walls that look like glass but are far stronger than that. Through the wall, she’s seen her brother grow into his own powers, seen him stumble and fall as his mutation took root.

On the other side of their cage, the scepter sits, it’s blue glow a constant eerie presence.

That scepter is the reason they have not tried to run—they simply _can’t_. Maybe, given time, Wanda will know how to use these powers, will learn to let them run wild through her body and not be consumed by them. But ever since she and Pietro were brought here, she has had only one thing to do: keep that scepter away from Pietro.

Whatever power it has, it is insidious. At least in the wrong hands.

Baron von Strucker is exactly the wrong person to have access to it.

None of the soldiers dare touch it, be it because of fear or awe of him. Where it came from, Wanda doesn’t know, nor how the Baron came to possess it. The only thing that matters is the wicked purpose he intends to use it for. Having felt the light press of it on her mind, Wanda resists it with all she can, has bent her every thought to keep that scepter contained, to neutralize its reach.

Which leads us to this: Wanda, exhausted, fading, at the end of her rope. Pietro presses against the wall, murmuring stories in a speech too quick for her to understand; his power has settled in him more easily, at the cost of feeling so natural that he forgets the rest of the world doesn’t work at his speed. It doesn’t really matter; his voice is a comfort, no matter the words.

Her brother: the only person she has left in the world. He is the pale, male mirror image of her, their features exactly alike. But where her hair is dark, his has always been silver-blond from a young age. His eyes are dark and soft, hers light and sharp. As a boy, he smiled so easily; maybe she did, too. She no longer remembers. As a man, his smiles are only free with her. No one else can be trusted. They’ve long depended only on each other, as kids, as teens, as adults now.

That is why she cannot tell him that she’s failing, that she is close to breaking. She’s all he’s got, too. But her mutant power, that wild and reckless thing—it’s caving in. Barely controlled, having been pressed into service too soon, too hard, too long, it’s flickering, leading to brief moments of helpless vulnerability.

When she falls, they’ll come for her. Strucker will finally be able to control her. With nothing in the way, Pietro, too, will be forced to obey. And then… who knows what horrors they will see?

Slumped in the corner of her cell, she watches Strucker stand just on the other side of her cell. He’s not picked up the scepter yet, is content to watch and wait for her to break. Would he have picked them had they not been Jewish and _Roma_? Would their latent mutations have been enough for them to become targets? How did he even know what they were, when they had not known themselves?

It won’t be long now. Her grasp is slipping.

“ _Herr Strucker_!”

A soldier skids into view, face deathly pale beneath his mask. These Nazis, they are proud to wear symbols of hate on their chests but mask their faces. Perhaps, at heart, they know they are not on the side of the angels. But that’s an idealist thought. Wanda is much more realistic. Nazis have no heart to speak of.

“ _Herr Strucker_ , they are coming!” the soldier proclaims. Wanda’s heart doesn’t even skip a bet, but the Baron’s snaps to, surprised. “They are closing in!”

Strucker moves at once. “Deploy the tanks. We must evacuate quick; sedate the twins, have them moved. Dr. List! Go with them.”

“And the scepter, _Herr_?” Dr. List asks, coming out of the room with the Chair. God, that chair. Wanda and Pietro were reborn in it, screaming. 

“When the girl falls, it will be time—you there! Bring the carrier. Is the sedative ready?”

“Yes, _Herr_.”

“ _They’re coming!_ ” someone screams. “ _The Avengers are here!_ ”

“ _No surrender_!” the Baron orders.

“ _No surrender!_ ” the soldier shout back.

“ _Hail HYDRA_!”

They go for Pietro first; he will take the longest, they have to corral him into one of the corners, pin him down and keep him completely still. Even then, he moves quickly enough that they have to make several attempts, minute vibrations that throw them off for a little while. Wanda can only watch and scream uselessly; her power is fixed on the scepter, she cannot undo it. It is less that she is holding _it_ at bay, more that it has seized onto her, and now the two are connected, feeding off each other.

Despite her fatigue, she bares her teeth at the soldiers. She will not go down without a fight, powers or no powers. She’d never had them before, never needed them. She’ll claw and bite and tear and make sure they remember her.

This will _not_ be the end of them. Wanda will make sure of it.

“Will you come quietly, girl?” Dr. List asks, looking down his nose at her. His tendency to treat Wanda and Pietro like unruly children would be enough to make Wanda hate him even were they not imprisoned in a fucking torture dungeon.

She spits at him. “ _Te del o Del, džućhela te ćeren o abjav katar će kokala!_ "

He sighs theatrically. “Hold her down.”

When he finally pushes the plunger, more than a couple of soldiers have scratches on their faces and are missing chunks of hair. But in the end, Wanda’s strength finally gives out, starting with her trembling limbs, making her an easy target at last. The sedative runs through her, a river of ice.

Her power has been exhausted; she can’t even feel it anymore.

The last thing she sees before she goes under is the scepter pulsing madly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all: i am neither jewish nor romani. if i have misrepresented anything, let me know, i'll do my best to fix it. i've done some research, but again, i have no personal reference, so feel free to tell me i'm wrong.
> 
> now, a very brief glossary:  
> \- daki dej = (maternal) grandmother  
> \- daia = mother  
> \- gadje = non-Romani people  
> \- goyim = non-Jewish people  
> \- Te del o Del, džućhela te ćeren o abjav katar će kokala! = a Romani curse, meaning 'God grant that the dogs make a feast out of your bones!'


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Steve ruminates on his present and the Avengers attack von Strucker's stronghold

After the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. no one really knew what to do with the Avengers, which Steve thinks is by far the worst thing, but only when he’s feeling particularly frustrated. There was also the whole ‘about half of a high-profile semi-shadowy agency turned out to be active members of a genocidal cult’, but at least that’s being dealt with, if slowly and arduously in court. It’s a shit-show of epic proportions, but it’s coming along.

But the Avengers thing? Now that’s a political pissing contest.

Two of the Avengers are spies with alarming service records and shady reputations. Another is technically still on a number of wanted lists for breaking parts of New York. Yet another was never truly hired as a full-time member and has way too much access to weapons of mass destruction. Then there’s the one who’s a goddamn alien deity.

And then there’s Steve.

That’s where things get really complicated. See, Steve was not so much an employee of S.H.I.E.L.D. as he was… property. Not that he’d known that until after the fall. Fury had never mentioned it, maybe because even he balked at that little technicality, despite everything else he was willing to do for the greater good. The truth is that back when Steve signed the papers for Project Rebirth, he should’ve read the small print; it more or less stated that as the serum is in effect, Steve is to be subject to study and use by the SSR. And since S.H.I.E.L.D. replaced the SSR, he became the property of S.H.I.E.L.D.—mostly a matter of copyright, until he was found in the ice. Then S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. That should’ve ended it all.

But it didn’t.

The SSR and S.H.I.E.L.D. had both been international agencies that originated in the US. Following the fall, the alphabet agencies of America scrambled to pick up the various assets, bickering about who had the right to what. As such, another US agency should also be able to get the rights to Captain America and the Avengers, right?

But no single agency had been deemed fit to house the Avengers; instead, they’re subject to the petty squabbles of all of them, pawns in a political game several decades in the making. It might’ve been easier if the World Security Council could take control—they had overseen S.H.I.E.L.D. after all, if anyone had the power to oversee the Avengers directly, it would’ve been them. But they’re still undergoing investigating as part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. trials and need to be cleared before any governing can resume.

In another world, the Avengers could’ve gone to join Coulson’s secret S.H.I.E.L.D. unit. But that’s not supposed to exist, so everyone in the know is keeping really quiet about it. Besides, by flying under the radar, Coulson’s team can get a lot more done. Odds are that they are behind at least seventy percent of the ‘anonymous tips’ that the alphabet agencies use to piece their HYDRA extermination plans together these days. 

The long and short of it is this: most of the time, the Avengers are grounded. Not just as a team, but as people, too. The trials implicate all of them one way or another, and they’re under strict orders not to leave the New York state unless it’s for emergencies. Emergencies such as the collective government agencies saying, ‘fuck it, they deal with it’ and throwing them at a newly discovered HYDRA nest, as is the case today.

All of that wouldn’t be an issue—actually, it would; they’re barely being treated like people—if it wasn’t for Bucky. Any other time, Steve would want nothing more than to throw himself headfirst into the fight, to finally, finally, _finally_ put an end to HYDRA, as he should’ve done, as he was told he _had_ done. But Bucky is _out there_ , alone. He might be hurting, he might be scared, or confused, or maybe HYDRA has found him again, maybe—

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Point is: Steve had a plan. He was going to bring his best friend home, was going to keep him safe. He made a promise. He told Bucky ‘to the end of the line’. But where has Steve been for the past year?

Not fucking there.

“You’re up,” Agent Carter calls from the cockpit, catching Steve’s eye and giving a nod.

The Avengers are squeezed around a small table in the back of the Quinjet in various stages of ‘dressed’. They’re all here, Natasha, Clint, Tony, Bruce, Thor, and Steve. Sam, too, but he’s there as their ‘pilot’. That’s what the paperwork says, and that’s what they’ll say if anyone asks.

Not that anyone has, so far. They can thank Agent Carter for that. In fact, Steve has a lot to thank Sharon Carter for, but turning a blind eye for a few hours for every mission she runs is perhaps the most important thing. There’s not a whole lot of buffers between the Avengers and expectations of the world, only Maria Hill—who’d make a hell of a director, if she ever wanted to be—acting as their representative on behalf of Stark Industries. That’s all they’ve got; one vague tether to Tony’s company that’s keeping them from becoming cannon fodder. It’s not nearly enough. Sharon’s unspoken loyalty is a gift. 

“I’ll get ready,” Sam says, getting up and walking out. He’s got a part to play, though not in this exact fight. If all goes well, he won’t even have to fight. With the way their luck has been going, that might be too much to hope for.

They’re in Alaska, not too far from the Canadian border. The CIA has been allowed to take the lead on this particular mission, and they’ve got plenty of people coming in for the clean-up afterwards. The less agents the various agencies have to throw at HYDRA, the better. Who cares that the Avengers could use back-up for the actual fighting? They’re superheroes. They’ll live.

This is supposed to be a retrieval mission. _Supposed_ to. A high-ranking HYDRA officer has taken refuge in a mountainside stronghold, a certain Baron von Strucker. Same interests as Schmidt had had in the war, same methods. Might have hostages. Definitely has stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. artifacts, though no one is quite sure which. Proceed with caution. He must be recovered alive, but as for the foot soldiers? The Avengers have been authorized to use lethal force. They usually are, these days. In the past year, killing has become easy again, like it had in the war.

Steve is so fucking tired.

He’s been sleeping badly. Not that that’s new, but it’s been getting worse. He nods off during the day, not into true sleep, just spaces out, a blip of his mind that leaves him disoriented. He can’t fall asleep on the couch anymore, has to bed down on the floor like he had right after thawing out back in 2012. All the progress he’d made, lost. He’s hyperaware of everything, sometimes finds himself seeking refuge on days where nothing much is happening, because even that is too overwhelming. Fighting is easier. At least then he isn’t helpless, isn’t stuck thinking about all the ways he’s failed as Bucky’s friend.

“Suit up,” Steve says, shrugging into his own uniform. He misses the stealth suit, but that’s a vain notion. At least the red stripes on this suit are relatively thin, not the godawful vertical blocks that had decorated the first Avengers suit, may it rest in burning pieces. This is as close to the stealth suit as Tony could make it, but still obviously based on the original Captain American uniform from the war. A real soldier’s suit.

His friends flank him on either side, suited and booted. Nat’s suit is new too, a sleek but heavy-duty black uniform with all sorts of tricked out gadgets. Thor is as splendid as always, and Clint somehow looks a mess even in his elegant long-sleeved winter coat. Tony is oddly grave-faced, and Bruce is in a pair of rather comfy-looking purple sweatpants. Of all of them, he has the easiest time getting ready.

Their pilot—their _actual_ pilot—sets them down a few miles out from the HYDRA stronghold. It’s not one that Steve had read about in his… personal research, probably belonged to a splinter faction. But there’s also a defunct bunker to the north, and _that_ he had known about. He’s a little ashamed to say that he’s more focused on that, even now.

The ramp goes down. Steve steps forward.

“Hit it, Fergie,” Tony quips, deadpan.

Across the comms, a song rings out: “ _ALL THE TIME I TURN AROUND, BROTHAS GATHER ‘ROUND—”_

“ _Absolutely not!_ ”

*

The Avengers storm the stronghold. There’s really no other way for the six of them to approach the fight; if the agencies had wanted stealth, they should’ve sent Natasha and Clint, maybe even Steve, but Tony, Bruce, and Thor are not exactly inconspicuous. No matter what Tony says.

From the outside, the HYDRA stronghold looks vaguely castle-like, as if it was built solely to look impressive. It’s old, too, a little craggy and crumbly, but HYDRA is clever enough to shore up their defenses, keeping their traps and tricks unseen.

As Tony finds out when he flies smack-dab into one of their invisible force shields.

“ _Shit on a stick-biscuit!_ ” he yelps, tumbling through the air. “ _Your mother was a—_ ”

“Pipe the fuck down, Tony,” Steve orders. He’s trying to sneak up on a HYDRA squad that’s pinning Nat down, he can’t have Tony babbling in his ear. 

Tony gasps. “ _Language, Captain!_ ” He still likes to pretend that Steve didn’t grow up on the wrong side of the tracks and, oh yeah, was in the army in the forties. Not really conducive environments for a guy to develop his polite vocabulary. Though Sarah Rogers certainly tried—and strictly ordered Steve to ignore the creative Irish Gaelic swears she used to mutter under her breath in times of great frustration.

(Used to be, Steve and Bucky would mimic her. Not in her presence, of course. They weren’t _that_ daring. But Bucky’s house had been fair game. Winifred Barnes didn’t allow cursing under her roof, but she didn’t speak Irish. They’d thought themselves clever.

Winifred had the last laugh. Of course she’d known what they were doing. So she’d snuck up on them while they were babbling curses and giggling and yelled “youse better not be saying naughty shit in my house!” No one left alive still remembers how Steve and Bucky shrieked and flailed and swore to never cross Winifred ever again). Steve misses her.

But he misses his Ma even more. It’s been twelve years—or eighty, depending on how you look at it. Yet he misses Sarah like her loss is still fresh. With everything that’s happened, it’s like it’s come back to try and break him, just like every heartbreak he’s had to endure in his short life. Her loss is the only one he allows himself to mourn. The rest? Those were his fault. He could’ve been there, could’ve chosen not to go down with the Valkyrie.

Could’ve gone looking for Bucky and spared him seventy years of horror. But he chose the selfish route. For that, he’ll never forgive himself.

In Steve’s periphery, Thor kicks someone in the face. That man is definitely dead now. The Hulk has joined the fray and is merrily wreaking havoc, testing the force field by throwing random soldiers at it. The bounce off like broken birds.

Steve throws himself into the fray and lets go. Fury and frustration burn through him, sharpening his hits and guiding him into the chaos. The HYDRA soldiers don’t stand a chance, even when they rush him _en masse_. There are so many of them. There are always more of them. It never fucking ends.

He fights back to back with Thor, gives Natasha cover, dances around Clint’s arrows. The latter had disappeared for a while, muttering up a storm, but when Natasha demands a status report he swears up and down that he’s fine. His labored breathing tells another tale.

“Go to him!” Steve shouts. “I’ll pave your way.”

Natasha nods, sets off.

“We need a way in!” Thor yells. “I can try the hammer, overcharge their systems!”

“ _Ixnay, Thunder Thighs_ ,” Tony says. He’s been darting around the force field, testing out the reach and taking fire. “ _We don’t know what kinda tech they’re working with, overcharging them could cause explosions, and we don’t know how many hostages are in there._ ”

“JARVIS hasn’t been able to find out?” Steve asks.

“ _Those fields do more than just repel intruders. It’s a black zone._ ”

“There’s no way in?”

“ _Chill out, I’m closing in._ ” A beat. “ _Right, JARVIS?_ ”

“ _Indeed, Sir. There’s a pathway beneath the north tower,_ ” the AI chimes in.

“ _I’ll get the drawbridge lowered, Cap. Hulk?_ ”

The Hulk roars.

“ _Distract them, wouldja? You, too, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, don’t just stand there lookin’ pretty._ ”

For someone who adamantly refused to be a soldier, Tony Stark is now far too close to being one. Steve can’t help but feel that that’s his fault, too.

Thor strides towards him, leaning their shoulders together as they face the oncoming swarm of HYDRA soldiers. “They’re lining up, huh.”

“Well, they’re excited.”

They grin at each other. Thor twirls the hammer and wiggles his brows; Steve raises the shield. There are odds moments of camaraderie and peace in battle. Taking down a whole squadron with just one hit—striking Mjolnir against the shield, creating a shockwave of lightning that is truly awesome—is one of those moments.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which an object is recovered and a more personal mission is carried out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi y'all!  
> sorry i've been so absent! this fic is proving to be difficult to write; either the muses are uncooperative or i have no time (often both, because why not). i have plans for it all though, and for the rest of the series, don't worry, it's just gonna take a good long while. i shall try to update at least once a month, but beyond that, i promise nothing for now.

Tony does get in and does get the drawbridge lowered. Or rather: gets the forcefield shut down. With the fall of their last defenses, the HYDRA soldiers are easy pickings for the rest of the Avengers, much as they try to prove otherwise. There’s no end to their suicidal fervor, and the battle keeps going for a while, one dead soldier being replaced by two live ones, on, and on, and on, _cut off one head, two more shall take its place_. When it finally ends, it does so with ringing silence and labored breathing. Smoke rises from craters in the ground, painting the sky gray.

The first of the back-up crew arrive as the last man falls.

“ _MR. HULK!_ ” some pip-squeak agent booms, not quite able to keep from trembling as he stares the Hulk down with no weapon but the megaphone he’s yelling into. “ _THE SUN IS GETTING REAL LOW_ —”

“This again?” Clint whines.

He’s close enough by now that Steve can hear clearly him without the comms. He’s walking under his own power, but Natasha lingers close, ready to steady him if he stumbles. He’s got quite the limp, his jacket is smoldering slightly, and his nose looks broken. For Clint, that almost counts as unhurt. For a man so good at his job and working mostly at a distance, he’s incredibly prone to injury.

Steve and Thor just watch as the self-important agent keeps yelling about sunsets. The Hulk looks just as weirded out as he did the first time it happened; no one is quite sure how or why someone came up with a semi-lullaby to calm him down, but as it worked the first time, the Avengers’ back-up crews have grown quite fond of using it. Steve’s guess is that they feel safer that way, lulled into a false sense of security. It would be a little mean to tell them that it only worked the first time because the Hulk was too goddamn confused by it all to hold onto the anger that Bruce needs to transform.

After each time, the Hulk grows less and less confused and more amused by the weird lullaby. Rather than having the little rhyme itself calm him down, the moods and ease of his teammates are what truly brings Bruce back to them. This time, it’s Natasha who gets to the Hulk first, approaching noisily and telegraphing her every move as she pads him stiffly on the arm. It’s taken her a lot to get to this point with the Hulk, to be this close and not flinch at his mere presence. She and Bruce may have worked it out together, but it’s just as likely that she’s stubborn enough to have powered through her fears and even now feels them linger while pretending otherwise.

A moment later, and a worn-out Bruce replaces the Hulk, the large form shrinking hurriedly; he’s close to falling over, but Clint and Nat catch him just in time. Clint winces; his injuries may be more extensive than first assumed. Bruce, too, looks the worse for wear; not exactly out of the ordinary for him, but he’s not usually so out of it after de-hulking. They all need rest.

But it’s not over yet.

“Tony, what’s your status?” Steve asks, tapping his ear comm.

“ _Downloading files,_ ” Tony replies cheerfully. “ _Aaaaand done. I’m coming out—wait, no. What do we have here? Gimme a sec._ ” To himself, he adds, “ _Please be a secret door, please, please—yay! Cap! It’s a secret door, oh! And a secret tunnel! Secret tunnel!”_ The latter is added in a sing-song voice. Probably a reference that Steve doesn’t catch.

Clint, however, does, and starts bellowing tunelessly about a secret tunnel. Their backup stare gaping, then look at Steve like he’s duty-bound to tell Clint to shut it. Steve ignores them; like hell is he going to take away what little comfort and weird coping-mechanisms his friends have at hand. 

“Tony, wait for me, don’t go in—”

“ _I’m going in!_ ”

Steve will not cuss out his teammate in front of God and everyone. He will _not_.

With the backup crawling all over the battlefield and surrounding the fortress, Steve leaves Nat, Clint, and Bruce in Thor’s capable hands. He’ll keep them safe and get them back to the Quinjet without offending anyone in the process; he has this peculiar talent for herding everyone around with just a beaming smile and a kindly touch. Steve won’t be surprised if he comes back to find Bruce and Clint bundled into their bunks like children and Natasha sitting at Thor’s feet getting her hair braided by their resident gentle giant.

He makes his way into the fortress slowly, shield up. They may have won the war outside, but who knows what might be hidden in the dark corners and blind spots. Tony chatters in his ear, little observations he makes as he boldly makes his way around without a care in the world. Steve tunes him out, both more careful and more alert in his own explorations. Strucker is here somewhere—or at least, he better be. Or this will all have been a waste.

Steve finds him in a grand war room.

He’s standing with his back turned, bent over a mess of maps and papers, seemingly unaware of Steve’s approach. He is a tall, bald man clad in a long military coat, a replica of what the old HYDRA officers had worn in the war. In fact, it may even be a relic from back then. 

At Steve’s voice, he snaps upright. “Strucker. Stand down.”

He hides his unease well and peers intently Steve through a monocle. His eyes are cold and analytical, and there’s a pleasant smile hovering around his mouth. “Captain America. What a pleasure.”

“Right.” The HYDRA insignia on Strucker’s chest catches the faint light. Because Steve has to, he bites back all insults and rattles off the spiel he and the other Avengers have been drilled on: “I am taking you into custody on behalf of the CIA to await trial for your involvement with HYDRA—”

“Technically, I work for S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Strucker dares interrupt, as if he’s not wearing a Nazi uniform right this second.

“Then technically you are unemployed,” Steve spits tonelessly and runs through the rest of his studied lines. Tony calls it their own fucked up version of the Miranda Rights; even now, certain liberties are still accorded to the people they bring in, despite everything they have done and want to do to the rest of humanity. It’s part of being the good guys. “Will you come quietly?”

Strucker sighs. “If I must.”

“Please. Feel free to resist.” _Make my day._

Not needing to think about it, Strucker gives himself up at once, allowing Steve to cuff him and frog-march him back out to the waiting CIA agents. It’s easy; too easy, and the suspicion niggles at Steve. Strucker doesn’t make much conversation, but that self-satisfied little smile lingers even when he asks, “You’ll mention how I cooperated at the hearings, I hope?”

Steve bares his teeth in a smile. “Right after the detailed list of your crimes.”

Wisely, Strucker stays quiet after that. Even if he knows that they don’t actually have a detailed list of Strucker’s crimes, he may be sensing that all Steve needs is one single excuse, however minute it may be, to punch his teeth out.

In Steve’s ear, even Tony has gone silent—alarmingly so.

Unnerved, Steve shoves Strucker into the waiting arms of the backup personnel and hightails it back inside, ordering Tony to report. No answer is forthcoming, not even to relay coordinates. If it wasn’t for the faint, static sounds of breathing, Tony might as well have disappeared entirely. 

More and more agents have started making their way into the fortress, but Steve calls on JARVIS to guide him through the abandoned lower corridors. He only rarely talks directly to the AI in battle, doesn’t really have much use for his help beyond simple logistics. Besides, Tony usually does all the bantering with his beloved creation, rendering Steve’s input obsolete.

“ _Mr. Stark went through here_ ,” JARVIS reports in clear, crisp tones. How he knows exactly where Steve is, Steve has no idea. Micro-chip in his suit? Secret camera in his helmet? He wouldn’t put it past Tony to add such a thing.

Passing through what must be Tony’s secret tunnel, Steve emerges into a laboratory. At first, he doesn’t really register it, and then he does, all at once. Conflicting impressions bleed into him painfully, confuse him, overlapping with a memory from long ago of a less advanced workshop and a body strapped to a table. Even the smell battlefield smoke stings his nostrils, the heat of a factory fire flickering across his skin.

He shakes his head, blinks, grits his teeth. _Keep moving_.

He passes by a room that makes him pause. A dreadful-looking chair has his heart seizing with rage—but it’s not the Chair he’s stared at for hours, that horrible thing they strapped Bucky into and hurt him and hurt him and _hurt_ him—but something like it, less refined, not really suited for anything except holding people down. Still, he shakes, sick with anger, much too adept at imagining what might have happened in here.

He walks on.

In another lab, he finds Tony, standing transfixed in front of two glass cells. The Iron Man suit stands sentinel at the door, whirring as it tracks Steve’s approach; it lets him pass without a second glance.

Tony is so still. He’s _never_ still. Not even when performing highly dangerous repairs on one of his inventions; he’ll flail one hand about while the other delicately adjusts a bolt or whatever it is that goes on inside machines. Steve doesn’t know much of what goes on in Tony’s workshop, to be honest. Half the words that come out of Tony’s mouth goes well over his head. If it weren’t for the fact that they both find comfort in the babbling, Steve probably wouldn’t be acquainted with Tony’s work at all.

“Tony?”

No answer.

“Stark? Are you okay? _Tony_.”

Tony whirls; Steve plants his feet, wary enough to get his shield up in front of him.

Clutched in white-knuckled hands is a familiar scepter—Loki’s scepter, from the Battle of New York. Though Loki had firmly denied it being his, of course, in the days after the Battle. Unlike the Tesseract, which the Avengers had kind of run off with to send it back with Thor to Asgard, S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken the scepter into custody. After the fall, it had been listed among the missing objects. One of the most critical ones, given that it had come from outer space, and could take over people’s minds. No one’s been sleeping well, knowing HYDRA had it.

But here it is, found again. The tip pulses eerily, just like it had back then, and the glow of it casts a sickly light on Tony’s pale face and unfocused eyes. He doesn’t look himself, looks older, sharper, less bright, in a way. Like he’s a ghost. Not the ghost of Tony Stark, but of Howard. 

After a second of staring blindly, he slumps, comes back to himself.

“They’re gone,” he says, jerking his head at the cells. “We’re too late.”

He’s right. Still, Steve tries: “We got Strucker. And now _that_.”

“I’m sure that’s a comfort to the hostages. We didn’t save you, but look! A light-up staff!”

There’s nothing to do except lead Tony back out and letting him rant. This right here is why Tony should not be drawn into this fight; it’s not that he can’t fight, not that he isn’t good at it. It’s that he takes every single loss personally, carries their mistakes like wounds on his soul. He’ll deny it, of course, but he’s possibly the most human of all the Avengers. Even Clint compartmentalizes better, despite being the most normal by far.

Once upon a time, Steve had felt as Tony does. These days, he may feel things more keenly—the serum sharpened everything, even emotional responses—but he’s been through battlefield losses too many times. He just adds them all together and keeps going. If he stops, he’s lost.

*

While the scepter is by no means the only S.H.I.E.L.D. object found in the bunker, it is the one that creates the most fuss. The CIA, of course, argue passionately for it to be turned over to them at once. Tony, having never met an order he didn’t want to counter, throws himself right into that argument, burying his anxiety under arrogance and bluster. Steve lets him, just stands at his shoulder and glowers neutrally at anyone getting too close. 

By the grace of God and Sharon Carter, the Avengers end up in charge of the scepter. While she isn’t about to outright defy orders, she has no remorse about calling a spade a spade and plainly cites their lack of experience with extra-terrestrial objects as her reasons for handing the scepter over. No one has anything to say to that, and as no other objects fall under that category, the agents all fall in line, if sourly. 

“We will want access and running updates though,” she says, soothing some of the ruffled feathers on her crew. Tony waves her off with half a promise and flies off, suited once more. Turning away, she catches Steve’s eyes briefly, her gaze intense. “We’ll be here for hours yet, Captain Rogers. You should get some sleep.”

Knowing full well that she’s not really telling him to relax, he replies, “Thank you, Agent Carter.” It only feels a little strange to call her by that title and name; they may belong to her, but to him, Agent Carter will always be another. A bit of guilt stirs, too, but that has less to do with Sharon and more to do Steve’s long absence from Peggy’s side. He tells himself she understands, but while it’s the truth, it doesn’t make him feel better. “Time estimate?”

“At least five hours. But I wouldn’t count on much more. The scouts we sent out after the hostages will either have found them by then or given up the chase.” Translation: _don’t go looking for them, or you will surely get caught._

“Understood.”

She allows him to take one of the cars back, ensures to loudly note his fatigue. It’s not the real reason for this allowance, but it’s wise to keep up appearances. Less questions gets asked that way, and if they do, at least she can remain in the clear. No need to admit she knows exactly what Steve is doing the second she turns her back.

At the Quinjet, Sam and Nat are waiting. They’re both in all-black, neutral, full-body uniforms that carry no insignia and no obvious gadgetry. When they pull up the hoods, you can’t even tell who’s underneath. Nat takes over as driver, keeps the engine warm while Steve changes onboard the Quinjet.

Quickly and efficiently, he sheds the Captain America suit and pulls on his own all-black assemble. Over the sweat and grime from the fight, the thick material feels particularly uncomfortable, but there’s no time to shower. The clock is already ticking. 

Before running back out, he checks on his friends. Tony is fiddling with something at the table, eyes straying to the box where the scepter is presumably being kept for the duration of the flight. He still looks a little peaky; Steve will have to look in on him later.

In the bunk area, Clint has been put to bed, ankle raised on a pillow. He’s taken out his hearing aids and gives Steve a tired thumbs up that in no way reflect whether or not he’s truly fine. Another thing Steve will have to double-check. Bruce is out cold, snoring away.

Thor is up and about. At the exit, he grabs Steve by the neck in a gentle hold and pulls him in close for a fierce hug as he is wont to do whenever he feels like it. He even presses a distracted, brotherly kiss to Steve’s sweaty hair, murmuring assurances that he will keep the rest of them safe. He doesn’t like having to stay behind, but he understands why he needs to.

Clint loudly complains that he didn’t get a smooch.

“How long we got?” Sam asks when Steve returns to the car.

“Five hours. But make it four,” Steve says. If they find anything, they’ll need the last hour to hide it.

Nat turns the car east, driving towards a long-abandoned HYDRA bunker that may have housed the Winter Soldier once upon a time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Steve keeps searching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the angst at the end, but i had to

What’s worse? Finding nothing? Or finding mere traces of what you were looking for and knowing you’re too late for it to truly matter. Days, weeks, years. Decades, even. Steve is always too late for Bucky; too late to save him from the horrors of Azzano, from the experiments that made all this possible; too late to kiss him; too late to reach for his hand on the train in the Alps. While he’d been busy trying to die, they’d been tearing Bucky apart.

Too late. Much too late. Seventy years too late.

This HYDRA bunker is much more inconspicuous than the fortress they’ve just taken; for one thing, it’s not nearly as ostentatious, hidden behind a small shack-like structure masquerading as a hunter’s cabin. Through the trapdoor in floor, they descend several feet into the ground, down a long, narrow tunnel, until they finally emerge into the upper floor of the actual bunker.

“Three floors,” Natasha reminds them. It’s one of the few pieces of information they’ve been able to confirm. “If they’ve gone with the same layout as the last one, we’re looking at several rooms on each.”

They spread out with their comms on and guard up. It’s clear from the dust that the bunker has been long abandoned. It’s rather a miracle that there is _any_ dust at all, given how tightly the bunker has been locked down before Natasha came and disabled the system. There aren’t even rats down here. 

The upper floor is largely administrative and living quarters. Lots of cubicles, small offices, even a few common rooms. The hallways are shallow; Steve has to walk sideways a number of times, careful to avoid getting stuck. He’d done that last time—though that had been because of a half-collapsed door. His belt had got stuck. His _belt,_ Natasha, not his ass. Hadn’t stopped her from quipping, “ooh, Captain America _thick_.” Sam had had to lie down, he was wheezing so hard.

Second level is much the same; they’re even lucky enough to find several computers still connected to a power source, and Nat gets to work downloading all their files on Tony’s clever little thumb drive. She just has to plug it in and wait. Child’s play. Sam searches the file cabinets in the meantime, looking for paper copies. There aren’t many though, indicating that HYDRA either cleared them out, or simply hadn’t used them for their reports. What’s on hand are mostly expense charts and research. It gets packed up anyway; Coulson’s team might want them.

Alone, Steve heads for the bottom floor.

He has to break the door down, the first sign that something serious had gone on down here. The second one is that HYDRA had obviously and painstakingly cleared out the entire floor. There’s not even dust down here, just stale air. Still, Steve walks the empty rooms, footsteps echoing. From the setup, this floor appears to have been a medical wing—or something worse. There are drains in the floor and plenty of ventilation shafts, tiles and sterile steel everywhere.

In the back room, he pauses in the center of a series of scuff marks, so deep they couldn’t be covered up. A sliver of recognition works its way up the back of his mind, chilling and vibrant as it takes form. The dimensions of the device that once filled this space, the weight and heft it must have had to leave those marks… add in the prodigious number of electrical outlets and everything else about this floor, and Steve knows exactly what once stood here.

“They kept him here,” Steve tells Sam, who’s just walked in. He pauses when he sees Steve, visibly forces himself not to freak out; Steve is standing in the center of the scuff marks, standing where Bucky had once stood. Upright in his frozen prison, hemmed in on all sides. Had he been scared when he went under? Had it hurt? Had he been aware, or had it felt like a long, disorienting sleep? Had he even known—

This is where they’d kept him, if only for a little while. This is where they’d put him, in a coffin underground, where they’d taken him out and wound him up and hurt him and hurt him and hurt him—

“Steve. Let’s go. There’s nothing down here.”

Sam has to herd him out very, very carefully. His touch makes Steve flinch, but Sam remains steady, pulling him slowly from the tomb-like lower levels, voice calm as he goes over his findings. Slowly, Steve’s hands unclench, he stops grinding his teeth, and the noise in his head dulls from a roar to a hum. He blinks down at Sam’s hand; he wants to reach out, to put him at ease, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t really do human touch these days, makes do with the touches he receives instead. Not that that is much different from how he’s always been this century.

He misses what little he’d had.

*

They get back to the Quinjet with plenty of time to spare. Steve checks in with everyone, makes sure to look them in the eye and ask them how they feel, all the while ignoring Sam’s impatient glare on his back. When he’s made his rounds—even with their pilot, who was more than confused to be included on Captain America’s list of concerns—Sam corners him mercilessly. He’s not even out of his black suit yet.

“How’re you holdin’ up?”

If you’re ever cornered by Sam Wilson’s aggressively gentle care-stare, remember this: never say you’re ‘fine’. Sam does not accept that definition, not unless you’ve got copious amounts of physical evidence and a couple of witnesses to back it up. Instead, Steve says, “Tired. Little down, I guess. Just gotta keep moving.”

Is it the truth? Nowhere near. But if Steve told Sam everything he’s holding back, neither of them would enjoy the outcome. Sam started hinting at therapy several months ago, in-between getting shot at on mission he really wasn’t supposed to be on and cementing his place at Steve’s side. Steve couldn’t shake him even if he wanted to—and he doesn’t. But he does want him to stop asking how he is. No, Steve isn’t well. Obviously. But he gets back up. He always does. It’s his thing. He doesn’t need a shrink to spell that out for him.

Does he wish that he’d move past the stage ‘coping’ and into ‘healing’? Of course. But to be honest, he’s not really sure he ever will. Steve Rogers has never been a fully functional person. Either his health was failing and he’d been fighting for his life, or there was a war going on and he’d be fighting for his life, or the bills were due and there was no money, or Bucky was gone and Steve was following, or—

There’s always something. He can’t turn his back for even a second, or something much worse will come for him. Look at what’s happened; He got his second chance at life, tried a semi-normal life in D.C., and it all turned out to be a lie. World just wasn’t made to cut him some slack. Wasn’t made to cut any of them some slack, actually. Just gotta get back up.

Sam doesn’t buy it, pushes a little more. Steve dodges, feigns weariness. Well, not actually feigning, he really is drained, but not so much that he can’t run off to shower and be alone for a good while first. After, he crawls into his bunk and puts on his headphones, closes himself off.

He’s not the only one dodging heart-to-hearts aboard this flight. In fact, the Quinjet is full of people exceedingly skilled at bullshitting their way through life. Tony has been going through something for a long time—shellshock, anxiety, whatever you want to call it. Steve recognizes himself in it but doesn’t know how to help. Even now, there are sharp edges to Tony’s smile as he jokes around with Bruce. Bruce, in turn, remains half-hidden from all of them, always keeping himself apart even if he’s right there. Nat, always so careful with her trust and her secrets, has been through hell this past year, her past coming to light, her trust broken a hundred times over. Clint is… Clint is harder. There’s loneliness in him, something deep and wide, and grief and anger, too. He just covers it better than the rest of them. And Thor… well. Thor hasn’t gone home for months now and changes the subject every time it comes up.

So you see, Steve _could_ confess to Sam. Could be honest, and maybe, in turn, he could share the loads weighing on his friends, could help them as Sam would help him. But Sam’s got his own problems; he may be a counsellor, but he’s got PTSD, too, and he’s already taken too much on himself with this whole mess. Selfishly, Steve loves him for it. Who knows what might’ve happened if Sam had turned him away when he and Nat first came running to him? Steve’s got no right to expect anything more, and besides, Sam can’t be both friend and therapist. So Steve will keep his secrets and his burdens and lock them down just as he’s always done.

There were always things he and Bucky didn’t talk about either.

Once CIA have scavenged all there is to be found in the HYDRA fortress, Sharon returns to the Quinjet. She looks in on them quickly, counting heads and noting their downturned frowns, then gives the order to take off.

Steve lies back, listening to The Jackknives songs he could’ve sung in another world, songs he could’ve sung to Bucky. Songs of home and grief and love and everything they’ve lost. Songs of hope. And he tries to hold onto what hope he’s got left, himself.

*

These days, Steve sleeps at Stark Tower most often. He’s got a tiny little apartment in Brooklyn, not too far from his and Bucky’s old neighborhood. There is barely any furniture in it, a bed, a couch, a single, round table and two chairs. The only fully functional room is the bathroom, and the kitchen is rarely used.

It’s just a place really, not a home. He sleeps there maybe twice a week, when he sleeps at all. Most the time, he’s either at the Tower, going over files and leads and praying for answers, or he’s walking around Brooklyn, wading through memories of times gone by, seeing Bucky on every corner and chasing ghosts, because of course, Bucky isn’t there.

All this time, and he hasn’t come looking for Steve. Maybe he’s scared. Maybe he doesn’t know to. Steve just wishes he’d come back, come home; he’d make it all right again, do anything to help Bucky. But he hasn’t seen him since the Helicarriers fell, since the last look Steve took before freefalling once again was Bucky’s frozen, horrified expression.

Nonetheless, Steve makes the trek from the Tower to the apartment. He’s got a routine now; check the rooms, the windows, the cupboards. Maybe one day he’ll come home to a missing box of granola, or a dirty dish in the sink, or a bed that’s obviously been slept in. He hasn’t yet. And he doesn’t think he will. That doesn’t stop his heart from leaping every single time he walks in.

He can’t stomach the thought of being alone tonight, so he locks up quickly and leaves. He’s got a route now, one he walks regularly enough that people have started recognizing him. They do that a lot more these days; turns out you can’t sink a government agency and splash their dirty secrets all over the internet without gaining a little bit of infamy. They leave him alone, for the most part, just snaps a bunch of not-so-subtle photos and titters behind their hands, not knowing he can hear them.

What’s the opinion on Captain America these days? In a word: mixed. It’s the same for all of them, all the superheroes in New York. And boy, are they coming out of the woodwork these days. There’s a devil in Hell’s Kitchen, a bulletproof man in Harlem, and a spider in Queens. Tony keeps a list but hasn’t got the time to look too deeply into it. On top of his already substantial workload at Stark Industries, he’s been wading through the S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA files, too, as a favor to Steve.

And looking for his parents’ killer, too. That had been a fun conversation to have.

Steve’s wanderings take him all the way up to the Navy Yard and back down, down all the alleys and sidewalks he and Bucky used to walk. The streets have changed in a few places; Fulton Street—or _Old_ Fulton Street, as they call it nowadays—isn’t nearly as interesting as it was back then. None of the docks are; used to be, you’d see all sorts of things up here, things that made you realize just how extraordinary the world was. Arnie Roth and his sweetheart used to go out around here, unafraid and open, laughing at sailors. Or so Bucky’d told Steve.

Hours later, Steve’s standing in front of the tenement building belonging to the New York Tenement Museum, Brooklyn Branch. Unlike the rest of the buildings around it, the building that once housed Steve and Bucky remains unchanged by the years, well-kept and well-touristed. Even more so now that Steve’s been found alive.

Unlike the rest of the visitors, Steve doesn’t have to wait for a tour to start to go in. He’s got his own key, and the guides know not to bother him, even if he walks in in the middle of a tour. Today, he’s lucky; a tour has just ended, and the next one won’t start for another fifteen minutes. He ducks inside, face half-hidden behind sunglasses and a cap, not that those are much help these days, and walks up to the place he once called home.

It looks much the same as it did the last hundred times he’s been up since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., scuffed furniture and meagre possessions lined up for all to see. He doesn’t even pause at the closet anymore; some of their old clothes hang there still, smelling vaguely dusty and mothball-y. A shirt is missing, but Steve removed that himself when he first came back, held it close until the smell of Bucky faded and he’d buried it at the bottom of his dress, unable to stand the sight of it.

Like he’d done in his apartment, he checks the windows and locks, the drawers. Nothing has been tampered with; nothing has been moved. No one’s been here but the tourists and museum employees. No curious, shaking hands have picked up objects they’d once held and called their own, no pale eyes have skimmed through the books and sketches on the shelves.

Bucky hasn’t been home.

*

Once Steve has left and locked up, the tour is about to start. He scoots around them, doesn’t look up from the pavement until the building is out of sight. Down on the street, the guide starts narrating the history of the building, the role of the tenements, and the humble beginnings of Captain America. Her audience listen intently, even those who’ve heard it before, as many of them have.

One of those repeat listeners is only half-paying attention. He’s not standing with the rest of the group, but alone. He’s not even on the street, in fact, but upstairs in the apartment that Steve has just left, and his eyes are on Steve’s retreating form. He’s got long, dark hair, plenty of scruff, and pale, sharp eyes.

He wants to call out an apology, but keeps his mouth shut.

He wants to tell him, _not yet,_ but doesn’t dare in case it’s just a lie to soften the _not ever_ that sometimes haunts him.

He only watches and listens and wait as the only person who means anything to him anymore walks away, until Bucky Barnes is all alone again and has to make for the unused attic before the tourist group stumbles upon him.


End file.
